Mobile Mardi Gras struggles in hard times to find vehicles to pull floats

MOBILE -- Mardi Gras organizers are scrambling to find 80 vehicles to pull floats after a Mobile dealership decided not to provide its white full-sized trucks because of hard economic times.

Parades are scheduled to begin in downtown Mobile on Feb. 6. Fat Tuesday is Feb. 24. Only 25 are needed per night in the beginning, but as many as 80 trucks a day are required by Joe Cain Day on Feb. 22, according to Sonny Davis, president of the Mobile Mardis Gras Parading and Non-Parading Association. Floats were pulled by mules in the early days.

McConnell Automotive started providing trucks about 20 years ago.

"It was much smaller then than it is now," McConnell Automotive Chairman Jim McConnell said Tuesday. Providing trucks grew into "event sponsorship" as years passed and more parading groups launched.

"GM participated in helping defray the costs," McConnell said.

In better economic times, the trucks would be returned to GMC dealers after Ash Wednesday, and were sold before they got to the lot with the help of factory-provided incentives. This has not been the case in the last few years.

Mardi Gras groups and other parade entities were notified several months ago, but no other manufacturer has offered to provide trucks.

For now, some mystic organizations are looking into leasing trucks or creating a "bring your own pickup" arrangement.